More Postgame thoughts

Texas won a hard fought game. I tip my foam Sooner Schooner hat to them.


At the beginning of this year, I thought the Horns would win this game, as a result of a more experienced offensive line. I picked them to win in my Big 12 preview. Those picks were made prior to 1) realizing just how far the dropoff would be from last year's o-line to this years; 2) Jermaine Gresham getting hurt; 3) Sam Bradford getting hurt. If you would have told me at 800 am Sat morning that a) Bradford would get hurt in the first quarter; b) the Sooners would have five turnovers; c) have negative rushing yards, I probably wouldn't have even got in the car to go down to the Cotton Bowl.

Now, I'm going to digress into a couple of shoulda-woulda-couldas.

1. In the first quarter, Landry Jones throws a beautiful long pass to Cameron Kinney. Kinney jumps up over Curtis Brown, extends his arms - and the ball goes through his hands and hits him in the helmet. Incomplete pass, and Jimmy Stevens misses a 45 yard field goal into the wind. If he catches that pass, it's first and goal inside the give, and three plays later Jimmy could have make a much shorter field goal.
2. The Sooners DOMINATED the first quarter. And led 6-0 at the end of it. I thought the game was lost in the first quarter, when the Sooners had such an edge, but the edge didn't translate to points.
3. The hurry up offense needs to stop. The time of possession in this game was 34:32 Texas to 25:28 Sooners. In the first quarter, the Sooners had the ball 9:48 seconds to the Horns 5:12 seconds. The remaining 45 minutes of game time, the time of possession was 29:20 for Texas, and 15:40 seconds for the Sooners. As long as we can't: a) run the ball (3.9 ypc through, 66th in NCAA just ahead of Kent State, but behind Ohio), and b) convert 3rd downs (32 for 88 is 84th in Division 1-A), we need to not routinely snap the ball with 19 seconds left on the play clock.
4. The Baylor Bears have a run package where they take one of their defensive lineman and put him in at fullback. The Sooners need to do the same iwth Gerald McCoy on short yardage downs.
5. On Broyles TD catch and run, Brandon Caleb makes two crucial blocks that help Broyles make it all the way to the end zone.
6. The Sooner defense changed at half-time. They seemed to play mroe straight-up in the second half. At least from a lineup perspective. They seemed to not be moving around as much, and didn't seem to blitz as often. That probably was in part due to: a) half time adjustments and an effort to give Texas a different look; b) Longhorns snapping the ball more quickly and not allowing as much pre-snap movement; c) different looks given by the Horns.
7. The Sooner D did a great job of containing Shipley yesterday.
8. I realized in watching the game on the DVR that Brody Eldgridge played left guard yesterday. It's just another evidence of how bad the o-line is that our all-conference fullback and backup tightend has now played two different positions on the interior line thus far.
9. The Sooners were 0-5 on 3rd down conversions in the second half.
10. Keenan Clayton drops two different almost certain pick sixes during the second quarter.